Mood Ring Now Comes In A Mood Dress in the Philips Bubelle

Remember the mood rings from the 1970's invented in the late 1960s by Marvin Wernick? You know, the ones that changed colors with your mood. Dark blue was the color of love and joy. Turquoise was the color of relaxation and calm. Yellow-green was the color of a troubled, uneasy soul and black was the color of anxiety and irritation.

Remember Lisa Stead' s 2004 collection of Emotional Wardrobe that changed aesthetics according to a person's emotions whether the person was wearing the garments or not so that the garments appeared to be communicating? Desiree, for example, was a dress with electroluminescent 'sequins' that shimmered when a viewer came near, as if flirting.

This year's emotional icon to remember is Phillips' Bubelle, the emotional sensing prototype dress. Bubelle has landed on Time's Best Inventions Of The Year list. The color changing dress is one of two Philips' SKIN Probes developed as part of the SKIN research project lead by Lucy McRae. For more of Phillips 2020 vision see Myra Per-Lee's, Innovative Electronics & A New Development Model At Philips.

Bubelle is made up of two layers. The first layer contains biometric sensors that pick up a person's emotions and projects them in color and lights onto the second layer, the outer textile. The dress is supposed to be more about the environment and how it surrounds us and less about touch and sensitivity according to We Make Money Not Art .

To watch Bubelle in action click the play button on the YouTube video below.

Doesn't she look like a fairy? Doesn't the dress look like the prom dress of the future?

So what's the point to emotional wardrobe? Well, to start with clothing is much more entertaining to wear and watch when it changes color according to our emotions. Second, in the future I believe fashion will be less about the cost of a particular outfit and more about an outfit's personality and ability to portray its wearer's emotions. Third, there are a tremendous amount of communicative benefits to wardrobe that expresses how we feel.

Just clothes your eyes and imagine the benefits:

Wearers will have an alternate methods of conveying their deeper emotion too difficult to express otherwise such as, whether they want to do it with someone or not.

Men will finally be able to accurately tell what emotion a woman is feeling during her frequent and scary mood swings.

Tourist will no longer have to guess if locals are being rude or if just stressed when they ask for directions and the local keeps walking by.

Parents won't have to wait days, weeks, months or years for their teenagers to tell them how they feel.

Moms will instantly know if their babies are hungry, sleepy or in pain helping the baby and the mommy have longer nights of rest. Longer nights of rest mean happier families. So you see? The benefits are endless. Don't you think?

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